


Saying It Out Loud (Makes It Real)

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 5 Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 09:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Five times they didn’t say it and one time they (sort of) did.Set in Season 1 (mostly).





	Saying It Out Loud (Makes It Real)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SherlockianSyndromes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockianSyndromes/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, SherlockianSyndromes!
> 
> Thanks to Brumeier for the swift and thorough beta.

  1. _Hide and Seek_



John waited till everyone else was gone from the infirmary, till Rodney was asleep. Even though all he’d done was pass out after going into the shadow, Carson had insisted on keeping him overnight for observation, just in case. Because Rodney was a bit of a hypochondriac, he’d assented.

John didn’t care if he was a hypochondriac, because Ford had nearly died from taking one brief zap from the shadow. Rodney had walked  _ into  _ it. It had swallowed him completely, and -

John had lost men before, lost friends and brothers and lovers.

He’d never seen it firsthand, not like that, never been frozen while a man walked to his death. 

He’d never  _ frozen _ like that before.

But this time he had, because it was Rodney, and right before Rodney had gone into the shadow, John had shouted,  _ “McKay!” _

What he’d meant to say was,  _ I love you. _

As if that would have stopped Rodney.

John stood beside Rodney’s cot and stared down at him. Dare he say it now?

No. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Because one time John would have to choose the mission over Rodney, and he had to be ready for that.

 

  1. _Thirty-Eight Minutes_



John had let Ford stop his heart. Rodney had been completely helpless, fumbling in the jumper’s control crystals while Beckett suggested madness.

And then John’s heart had stopped.

And it hadn’t started. It hadn’t started.

Rodney had stood in the aft compartment of the jumper while Carson and his team tended to John and he’d realized: when someone else was about to die, Rodney’s entire relationship with that person flashed before his eyes. That first moment when John sat down in the Control chair and lit up the world. The first time he really talked to Rodney. The first time he  _ smiled _ at Rodney. The first time Rodney realized he was in love with John Sheppard and his smirky smile and his deliciously understated intellect. 

Rodney had stood in the aft compartment of the jumper and stared down at John’s pale, unmoving form and realized:  _ I never got to tell you I love you. _

Now Rodney stood beside John’s infirmary cot and stared down at him and tried to work up the nerve to say the words, even if John wouldn’t hear.

But then John stirred, and Rodney - he fled.

 

  1. _The Storm/The Eye_



John listened to Kolya on the radio, to his irritatingly smug drawl, and his heart crawled into his throat. Weir was dead, Kolya said.

There was nothing John could do about that. She was dead, and he’d failed her, but he had a chance to save the city. And he had to save _ Rodney,  _ who was still in Kolya’s clutches. Rodney was mission-critical in a way Weir wasn’t, and Rodney was -

Rodney was  _ everything. _

Rodney had given John what he needed to make sure The Genii didn’t get their hands on Atlantis or its advanced weapons. The Genii wanted the C4 and a jumper. The Genii couldn’t operate a jumper, so John would start by putting all the C4 in one.

Then he’d get Rodney back. Rodney was key to saving the city from the storm.

So John went to get him. If he ended up taking out sixty Genii in the process, well - there were casualties in war. And Kolya taking Rodney was definitely an act of war. John had been trained to do a lot of things: pilot various helicopters, fighter jets, cargo craft. He’d been taught to follow men and lead men. He’d been taught to do lightning-fast calculations in his head and understand how numbers framed the keys to the universe.

And he’d been taught to kill.

So kill he did, over and over again, marking his road back to Rodney with enemy corpses.

When he finally found Rodney, Rodney had blood on his sleeve, Kolya had  _ hurt  _ him, but  Rodney had to raise the shields.

In the aftermath of it all, John was responsible for coordinating the return of personnel from the Menarian mainland, getting the C4 back into the armory, and he lost track of Rodney.

When he finally found him, Rodney was sitting in a corner of Ops, exhausted, fumbling to put a bandage on the wound on his arm.

John wanted to go to him, help him, but all he could do was gaze at Rodney, alive and mostly whole, and think, 

_ I love you. _

But he didn’t say it, because Sergeant Bates was calling for him, and he had to go be Major Sheppard.

 

  1. _Sanctuary_



Rodney wondered how John Sheppard, as beautiful as he was, could be so damn oblivious to when people were hitting on him. And this Chaya character, this priestess, was hitting on him hard enough to bruise.

Rodney wanted to shout at her.  _ Back off! He’s mine! _

But John wasn’t. He belonged to the United States Air Force and Stargate Command. He belonged to the men and women he was supposed to lead, the men and women he was supposed to protect.

And if he was going to belong to anyone, why not a beautiful woman like Chaya? She was calm, serene, perfectly healthy. In high school John had probably been Homecoming King and Prom King every time without even trying, and Chaya - she’d have been the perfect queen.

While they wandered around the village, talking to the locals, trying to understand what was going on with them and how they knew nothing about the Wraith, Rodney saw how heads turned for John and Teyla and Ford, who were all really unfairly beautiful people (some days Rodney felt like he’d stumbled onto a TV show and no one had give him a script). 

When one particularly bold woman went to lay a hand on John while he was distracted, Rodney stepped neatly between them. He’d stepped between Elizabeth and a gun; he could step between John and a flirty Pegasus native.

But then something on the woman’s face changed, and she nodded, smiled, and patted Rodney on the arm before walking away.

After that, none of the locals went near John, instead sidled toward Rodney, and he fended them off, because they were irritating. Also, he noticed that none of them were looking at him like they’d looked at John.

Rodney was prepared to wash his hands of the entire planet, and then Chaya caught him alone.

“Your relationship with John, is it strong?”

“As strong as any relationship between two people who routinely risk their lives for each other,” Rodney said, a little tartly. What business was it of hers?

“Then you love him?” Chaya asked.

Rodney’s throat closed around the words  _ very much. _

Chaya raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Then you do not mind if I -”

_ Yes, yes I do, _ Rodney thought, but he couldn’t say it, and Chaya nodded, patted him on the arm, and went in search of John.

 

  1. _The Brotherhood_



John had tried to distract himself from Rodney in all manner of ways: running more, sparring more with Teyla, spending more time at the range with Ford, playing video games, reading, even spending more time in the military command office with Sergeant Bates going over patrol rosters. 

He’d tried with Chaya. She’d been beautiful and sweet and charming - and not even really human.

It hadn’t worked, and Rodney had been right to be suspicious of her.

John should have been glad when Allina the pretty Daganian archaeologist had a crush on Rodney, was flirting with him, because if there was one thing John was good at it was respecting boundaries (despite what past CO’s might have thought), and if Rodney had a girlfriend, John’s stupid little crush would wither on the vine.

But it wasn’t a stupid crush. He was in love with Rodney, the kind of painful, lingering love that could turn into boiled bunnies and dead kittens on the doorstep if a guy wasn’t careful (good thing Pegasus had neither bunnies nor kittens).

When John stepped out of the archives for some fresh air, Allina followed him.

“Major Sheppard.”

He offered her a tight smile. Had to be nice to the natives. “Allina.”

“About Dr. McKay.”

“What about him?”

“Is he - seeing anyone?”

John told her the painful truth. “No.” He didn’t tell her the other painful truth: he wanted Rodney to be seeing  _ him _ .

Allina’s smile brightened. “Excellent.”

No, it was rather the opposite. John opened his mouth to say something to sabotage her chances with Rodney, but instead he said, “Rodney’s brilliant and brave and a little unpredictable. Not a lot of people can handle him, but if you can - it’d be worth it.” 

He turned and went back into the archives before he saw whether Allina had recognized the truth behind his words.

 

+1.  _ The Siege _

Rodney found John standing on the balcony on that same spot where they’d stood together and watched the Wraith bombardment of the city shields.

_ It’s almost pretty, isn’t it? _ Rodney had said.

_ Almost. Not quite, _ had been John’s reply.

“You didn’t fail Ford,” Rodney said quietly.

“Yes,” John said, his voice tight, “I did.” He didn’t look at Rodney.

Rodney studied him for a long moment. Then he stepped closer, lowered his voice. “You won’t fail me.”

John jerked away from him. “You can’t know that.”

“I can believe it.”

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve already failed you, a thousand times, when you went into that darkness, when Kolya tortured you, when -”

“You didn’t fail me. I’m still here.”

John shook his head, fell back a step, said something under his breath that Rodney didn’t quite hear.

He reached out, caught John’s wrist. “What was that?”

John met his gaze, surprised, because Rodney had never put a hand on him, not like that, would never do that to any soldier. 

John said, “I care about you too much and about the mission not enough, and it’s going to get someone killed one day, maybe even you.” He tugged out of Rodney’s grip and turned away.

Rodney hurried after him. “What if I care about you too?”

John paused, looked at him.

Rodney had thought it a million times, but he’d never said it aloud, not even to himself when he was alone. He wasn’t sure he could say it now.

He caught John’s wrist again, reeled him in, and kissed him.

John kissed him back.

_ I love you, _ Rodney thought. He was pretty sure he knew what it was John wasn’t saying aloud, what he was saying with his gentle hands on Rodney’s skin, the softness of his lips and the sweetness of his mouth.

_ I love you too. _

What John said aloud when he pulled back was, “My new quarters are this way.”


End file.
